Monday, December 22, 2014

With the arrival of 5th Edition in full swing,
many players and DMs are getting in on the D&D action for the first time.
This is excellent because a) it shows that many people are not only interested
in the brand but also are willing to give a whole new edition a chance; and b)
it is expanding the already diverse and impressive D&D audience. I personally
get a real thrill out of meeting first-time players/Dungeon Masters and asking
them what they think about the product and what motivates them to play/run
games.

In that vein, I’d like to welcome the new DMs to our
wonderful world of roleplaying with a few major do’s and don’ts that can easily
make or break an adventure. Keep in mind that a lot of my advice is geared
toward DMs running their own homebrew material and all of it may not apply to
those of you running pre-generated adventures.

1.Don’t Kill the Story Over the Rules

Eventually, every DM reaches a
point where they have to choose between the story and the rules. For example,
the story would suggest that the players need to win a battle in order to move
on to the next plot point. However, the rules are telling you that the players
are about to lose this fight and be wiped out. In my opinion, the story should
almost always win out.

Do Bend the Rules in Favor of the Story

Using the example above, the DM
needs to step in and make a few minor adjustments to the battle. Drop the foes’
hit points, ease up on the spell casting, or maybe add in some extra help in
the form of an NPC. There’s no reason why you can’t make the game challenging
and still keep everyone alive. I find that many DMs, both new and experienced,
seem to think that character death equals a truly challenging adventure. While
there is no doubt that a character death can really sober your players up to
the fact that your adventure is going to be difficult, it is by no means the only
way to do so.

2.Don’t Play Favorites or Give Friends
Special Treatment

One of the fastest ways a DM can
lose the respect and attention of his or her players is to place one or two
characters above the others. This can include, but is not limited to, such
things as: handing out treasure, spending extra roleplaying time, offering
extra rolls of dice or re-rolls, and planning adventures/dungeons so that
particular characters will fare better than others.

Do Keep Things Fair and Random

First of all, there will be
moments in both roleplaying and combat situations where certain characters and
players will shine more than others. That’s perfectly fine and expected. What I
don’t like to see is one or two characters getting the “royal” treatment over
long periods of time. It’s a huge let-down for the ones who don’t get anything
and it compromises your integrity as a DM. Secondly, players and DMs roll dice
for a reason. They are intended to be random and unpredictable. This randomness
is one of the great differences between a tabletop game and a console or
computer game and part of what makes D&D fun. Ignoring, changing, or
altering rolls on a consistent basis renders this whole random dynamic useless
and cheapens the game.

3.Don’t
Delve Too Deeply Into Just Roleplaying or Combat

As I have mentioned many times
in the past, D&D can be broken down into two major components: roleplaying
and combat. Roleplaying is where your PCs interact with each other NPCs, and
monsters on a conversational/social level. Combat is where the PCs interact
with each other, NPCs, and monsters in a round/turn based system designed to
simulate battle. As a DM you must be aware that you are going to run into
players who greatly prefer one component over another and other players who
enjoy both equally. Be aware that if you delve too deeply into one component
over another you may alienate some of your players.

Do Keep Roleplaying and Combat Balanced

My goal, as a DM, is try to hit
that magical 50/50 split. However, I am often happy if I achieve a 60/40
(usually in favor of combat). This means that in a four hour session I would
ideally spend two hours in roleplaying and two hours in combat. Now this may
not always be possible every session, especially if your party is in a dungeon.
However, realize that if you spend an entire session running from room to room
killing undead, you may want to have an all roleplaying session the next week
to balance it out and vice-versa. Different players like different things so
try to keep it varied and don’t fall into patterns.

4.Don’t Try to Make Your Campaign Too Funny
or Too Serious

Players appreciate good humor in
a campaign, particularly after a big moment or battle. Similarly, they also
appreciate getting down to serious business after the humor and laughs have
died out. Too much of either can kill the campaign. I have met a few DMs in my
day that embraced both sides of the coin too much and ended up with similar
results. An excessive amount of comedy in a campaign makes the players think
that they don’t need to take the adventure seriously. They feel as though they
can float around in your world with only “cartoon consequences” and this makes
them ultimately uninterested. On the other hand, a campaign that is too serious
or too intense can actually stress your players and they will eventually reach
a point where they will lash out. This can lead to players quitting, trying to
force the humor out, and it makes them ultimately uninterested.

Do Add a Little of Both to Every Campaign

As a DM or group, there is
nothing wrong with making a conscious decision to have a “serious” campaign or
a “funny” campaign. However, it is important to note that even the most serious
movies, television series, books, plays, and other forms of storytelling have
elements of humor, and vice versa. Don’t get so hung up on the idea that “I
have to make this funny” or “I have to make this intense” that you lose sight
of everything else.

5.Don’t Give In Every Time

One of the biggest mistakes that
a DM can make is to give in the wills and wishes of his/her players on a
regular basis. You can listen to what they have to say, consider their
opinions, but in the end the final say is yours. Don’t give a player the +2 Bow
just because they ask for it every session. Don’t let a whiny player have
his/her way by giving them something shiny. Don’t let players bully you into
making the story about them or what they want to do. Being a DM is a lot like
being a parent in this regard. The more you bend the more spoilt your players
become.

Do Be Tough But Fair

In case you haven’t caught on
yet, the overall theme of this article is balance and this issue is no
different. DMs need to be both tough and fair. Being empathetic, understanding,
and compromising are all excellent qualities for a DM to have but they also
need to be tempered by a sense of fairness, effectiveness, and making the
players earn their treasures. Believe me, a player that had to go through hell
(sometimes literally) to get that +5 sword is going to appreciate it a whole
lot more than picking it up off the side of the road. And, as an added bonus,
you might find that the players respect you more for the trouble.

Friday, December 19, 2014

This week I kick off a new series where I will be
showcasing fan art. Do you, or someone you know, have some great fan art they
want to share? Follow (THIS LINK) for the details. Enjoy!

RURIK
FROSTBEARD (submitted by Gobbo)

This is my Hill Dwarf Bard [College of Lore]. He plays
Didgeridoo as his main instrument and has the Sage Background. He is Lawful
Good in nature and has a love for all things concerning knowledge and
research. While he can be easily
distracted by new information, or the promise thereof, he is dedicated to
helping his friends in searching out catacombs and hidden ruins and to see
where the information contained therein leads them.

Tal Maggros(submitted
by Malcolm)

Thiswas my first character I ever rolled
up back in fourth edition. I saw the Dragonborn and fell in love with the idea
and looks. Tal was a Greatsword Fighter and a former Gladiator. He was given the red mark on his face as sort
of a trademark for himself.

I ended up drawing this in the tiny "portrait"
box on the standard character sheet. That’s why it is only a shot of his head.
The scales on his brow were going to be less purple then this, but I worked
with the colours I had a available and ended up liking this look much more.

Agrippa Mossroot andOctavian
Cloudrunner (submitted by Alex)

In our campaign, the Grippli are all but extinct, barely
living off the land in scattered tribes. After the loss of her entire Mossroot
tribe in a vicious raid by the Sahuagin, Agrippa (Ranger) roamed the land in
search of other Grippli tribes, occasionally taking up mercenary work to put
arrows in her quiver and gear on her back. This travel is how she met up with
the rest of our campaign's adventuring group.

One day, she received word that a nomadic band of Grippli
were attempting to bring the tribes together in order to preserve their race,
and it became her life's wish to help see that goal through to fruition.
Through battles with everything from vampires to barbarians, (usually with the
help of her non-Grippli adventuring companions) she proved herself worthy to
become chief of the newly forming tribe, now named Deeproot, and gained the
exceptional loyalty of a young Octavian (Rogue). Together, they work to oversee
diplomatic relations between contacted tribes, and to defend their new
homeland.

Both are chaotic neutral and put the survival of the
Grippli race and the Deeproot tribe above all else. Agrippa is very confident,
proud, rowdy, and often sarcastic, while Octavian is more of a quiet intellectual.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Quite often, the “Boss” or reoccurring villain in a
D&D campaign is more than a number of hit points with an evil laugh. They,
like their PC counterparts, should have personalities, backgrounds, and
back stories that give them depth and substance. In many ways, the more
interested the players are in your villain (rather it be love or hate) the more
exciting the moment will be when the inevitable resolution comes.

So, if you are a DM looking for villainous inspiration,
where do you turn? For me personally, the answer usually comes from another
source. To quote Aaron Sorkin, “The good borrow from the best and the great
steal from them outright.” To illustrate what I mean, here are eight examples
of villains I have picked from various sources of pop culture who make perfect
additions to many D&D situations.

(In Alphabetical Order)

Agent Smith (The
Matrix Trilogy)

There’s something to be said for a drone-like foe who
suddenly finds itself growing more powerful than its masters. Why just take out
the hero when you can take out the hero and make yourself lord of the world at
the same time! Specifically, I think that Agent Smith is an excellent example
of a villain that shows growth at roughly the same rate as the hero does and
that’s an excellent goal for all DMs to strive towards. If you are going to
introduce a baddie, especially a reoccurring one, don’t make them exactly the
same encounter after encounter. Keep adding to and changing them, after all,
villains should gain levels too.

Anakin
Skywalker/Darth Vader (Star Wars Universe)

This is the best example I can think of for the “once
great and now fallen hero”. Anakin began his career with so much promise and
accomplished so much good before his corruption to the dark side. Then, after
his transformation to Darth Vader, he quickly became one of the most feared and
terrible villains in the Star Wars Universe. Personally, I have dabbled with
this concept many times in my adventures and often to very good results. I
usually have an NPC join the party at an early stage and then slowly corrupt
them over time. Then, at some point around 7th or 8th
level, they break off from the party and become the main antagonist for the
remainder of the campaign. The final battle with these types of villains can be
terribly bittersweet for both the DM and the players.

Cersei Lannister (Game
of Thrones)

Here’s a little experiment for those of you who are both
fans of the HBO television show and Drow Elf society: Every time there is a
scene with Cersie Lannister, I want you to close your eyes and picture her
character as a Drow Matrion Mother. They fit together eerily well except for
those times she decides to obey her father. Anyhow, from a DM’s point of view,
Cersie Lannister is exactly the type of villain you want when there is
backstabbing and intrigue to be done. She is competitive, fierce, devious, and
fantastically brutal when the need arises. Combine all of this with her
fanatical loyalty to her family and you’ve got quite a lot of material to work
with.

The Joker (DC
Universe)

“Some men just want to see the world burn.” When you need
a villain to misbehave just for evil’s sake, there’s no better template than
The Joker. If he were a recipe, he’d be a cup of insanity mixed with a cup of
genius blended together and then added to a gallon of chaos. And, one of the
best aspects of The Joker, is almost everything he does is meant to test,
challenge, incite, and confuse his foes. In my opinion, this kind of
psychological warfare can be ten times more damaging to heroes like Batman than
anything that could be done to them physically. Why not carry that over to your
PCs? If you’ve never had a villain more interested in messing with the PC’s
minds than doing damage, I highly recommend you give it whirl.

Locutus (Star
Trek: The Next Generation)

What do you get when a relentless, fanatical foe manages
to convert one of your best players? Trouble. This is a concept that I have
also used a few times in the past to very good results. It works something like
this: You start off with a normal group of players but you allow one of the
players to have a few extras. Maybe they have a special item, or maybe you give
them a small bump to their stats, or an extra ability, etc. Then, after a few
levels, you raise them up a bit higher by giving them access to some mysterious
power. They probably have no clue where it comes from, only that it works well
so they use it when the need is great (and the DM should make sure that the
need is great quite often). Eventually, the power consumes them and the story
becomes less about fighting evil and more about the other players trying to
save their comrade (just like Locutus). How does it all turn out? You decide.

Loki (Marvel
Universe)

This baddie is similar to The Joker in the way that he
leans more toward the mental and emotional attacks than the physical ones. But
where Loki really distinguishes himself is in the realm of ambition. His sights
are firmly placed on his end goal which is asserting himself as the supreme
ruler of Asgard and all of the worlds under its protection, including Earth. He
is a wonderful example of how a villain can be defeated time-after-time and
still manage to progress and get stronger. His schemes, aided by his illusions
and other powers, are complicated, often misleading, and keep his foes
guessing/paranoid. This often leaves them tired from chasing non-issues by the
time the real danger arrives and it is an excellent strategy for any D&D
villain to emulate.

Lord Voldemort/Tom
Riddle (Harry Potter Series)

Here is the story of a young man so wrapped up in the
search for his own immortality that he ignores any reservations he may have
about morals or the wellbeing of others. Indeed, one could say that Voldemort’s
entire existence was in the pursuit of immortality and it ironically got him
killed. This kind of all-consumed or zealous villain is common, but from a DM’s
point of view, I think that it is important to give these villains as much
depth and color as possible. From Harry’s point of view, Voldemort was someone
to be both reviled and pitied. So too should your villains be seen by your
players in multiple lights.

Magneto (Marvel
Universe)

Ah yes, the perfect example of the villain who sees the
world as a flawed place that needs to be destroyed so that it may be rebuilt.
In many ways, these antagonists don’t view themselves as evil. They are just
willing to do what needs to be done for the greater good. Personally, these are
my favorite types of villains because they are always straddling the line between
what should and shouldn’t be allowed. Magneto in particular has a very strong
argument for the remaking of the world because he grew up during a time in
human history where someone was trying to remake the world in a very negative
way.

Friday, December 12, 2014

It’s week ten and the final week of my Class Showcase
series, where I take a class from D&D and give three examples from popular
culture. This week: Wizards.

#1 Gandalf (The
Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy)

On the one hand, Gandalf is really much more than just a
Wizard. In certain ways, he is a demi-god charged with snuffing out the fires
of evil through the purifying fire of light (indeed you could say he fights
fire with fire). But, on the other hand, he is the quintessential forgetful
Mage who is so wrapped up in his own grand thoughts and plans that many of the
smaller details pass him by. This makes him both invaluable and flawed which is
exactly how Wizards in D&D should be played. Yes, they wield incredible
powers that can stop entire armies in their tracks; but they are also
vulnerable in many ways and require the help of others more often than they
would like to admit. That’s why Gandalf is, in my opinion, one of the best
examples of a Wizard in popular culture.

#2 Harry Potter
(The Harry Potter Series)

“You’re a Wizard, Harry!” I know that it sounds corny but
who hasn’t wished to for magical powers from time to time? The power to change
your world with a few mystical words and a flick of the wand, for better or for worse, is a
very desirable thing. That subconscious desire is a part of what makes the
character of Harry Potter so exciting and interesting for millions around the
world. His innocence and naivety towards magic draws us in and we learn about
his world at roughly the same pace that he does. In many ways, this is also the
path that I’d like to see many players who assume the roles of Wizards in
D&D to progress. Magic should be a wondrous thing, even in a magic heavy
world, and both players and DMs alike should always give arcane powers a level
of mystery and respect. Trust me, it’s a lot more fun.

#3 Merlin
(Various)

As near as anyone has been able to decipher, the
character of Merlin was originally an amalgamation of several historical and
legendary characters brought together by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae, written
around 1136 (Wikipedia). His name was Merlin Ambrosius and he was depicted as
one of the heroes of the Romano-British War. Over the centuries he has evolved
from a prophet soldier, to the chief advisor and teacher of King Arthur, to the
magic wielding wizard many of us are familiar with today. And, despite what
many believe, Merlin is not just a British figure. Many examples of the Merlin
legend have been written in France, Norway, Finland, Germany, and Italy. In
almost all of these incarnations, Merlin uses his vast knowledge of both the real
world and the fantastical to bring about peace and justice. I consider him to
be the original Wizard and the foundation for almost all who have come after him.

Honorable Mention:
Bavmorda (Willow)

So I had to sneak in Bavmorda because, as a boy watching
this movie, she was the one Wizard I always loved to see get what was coming to
her. Willow is, in my opinion, a terribly underrated film. It was the precursor
to many of the modern fantasy franchises of today (Lord of the Rings, Game of
Thrones, etc.) and it was also the first time in years that a fantasy film was
done with great care and attention to detail thanks to the wildly creative
folks at Lucasfilm. Getting back to Bavmorda however, she was delightfully
evil and, unlike many of the Wizard villains of the past, she was able to back
up her words with some impressive magic. The fact that she is eventually
brought down by some slight-of-hand and showmanship was the icing on the cake.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Thanks for swinging by! If you, or someone you know, would like to show off your/their work and character; this is the place! Here are the guidelines for submission:

1) All art works must be original and without copyright.2) All characters depicted in the art works must be original and without copyright.3) All submissions must be in either JPEG or PNG formats and not exceed 2 MB.4) All submissions must come with a short (one or two paragraph) explanation on the character including name, race, class, etc. 5) Nudity is allowed, however, I reserve the right to "blur" or "black out" sections of the art work for the public.6) Please send all submissions with the subject line "Fan Art" to: luckybychance@gmail.com

Friday, December 5, 2014

It’s
week nine of my Class Showcase series, where I take a class from D&D and
give three examples from popular culture. This week: Rogues.

#1 Arya
Stark (Game of Thrones, Television Series)

Here we
have the beginnings of what I believe to be an Assassin build. As Arya’s story
continues to unfold we see her becoming more and more skilled, in control of
her emotions, and making the most out of her opportunities which are usually
hard won. Her ability to slip into and out of tough situations as well as her
willingness to do anything (even kill) when necessary, speaks volumes about the
path that she is walking. Regardless of her ultimate fate, I look forward to
the day when she reaps the countless promises of revenge she has planted. That
is assuming that she lives long enough.

(She is a Stark after all! lol)

#2 Bilbo
Baggins (The Hobbit)

Mr. Baggins is the original fantasy burglar and the character who has, in my
opinion, shaped the way we view both rogues and halflings alike right up to the
present day. Although much of Bilbo’s “skill” in sneaking and hiding seems to
come from his use of the One Ring, it cannot be denied that during the course
of The Hobbit he proves his natural
ability is up to accomplishing many tasks. The most telltale moment for me,
which defines Blibo as a rogue, is the scene between himself and Smaug. Darting
around in the treasure room and under the pressure of staring an ancient dragon
in the face, Bilbo still manages to discover the weakness of the dragon and the Arkenstone.

#3
Catwoman (DC Comics)

Since
her first appearance in Batman #1 in 1940, no other adversary has had such a
love-hate relationship with old Batty. And, despite the fact that she has been
portrayed in countless ways by hundreds of artists and actresses over the
years, she is fundamentally a rogue in all of them. It is also important to
note that in many of her incarnations she is considered to be not only one of
the best thieves in the world but is usually stealing items to benefit others
and not herself (like a female Robin Hood, with a whip). A fact that is not
missed by Batman as he often tries to reform her rather than send her to
prison. Regardless, her rooftop work, impressive dexterity, her ability to
sneak/hide, and get into and out of high security areas undetected make her one
of the best rogues in all of the DC Comic Universe.